Blog Post

Tips for Pairing Wine & Food

  • By No Author
  • 26 Jul, 2023

Whether you’re planning a romantic night in with your partner or a dinner party with friends, you’ll want to make sure your choice of wine pairs well with your meal. While pairing wine and food can be complex, there are some basics that you can follow to create great pairings. Once you become more familiar with different wines, you’ll become more confident in choosing a wine for the meal. Check out the following section to learn some wine and food pairing basics.

  1. The wine should be more acidic than the food.
  2. Red wines pair best with red meat.
  3. White wines pair well with fish and chicken.
  4. The wine should be sweeter than the food.
  5. Pairing a bitter wine with fat helps to balance out the flavors.
  6. When choosing your wine, it’s best to match it with the sauce rather than the meat.
  7. Red wines tend to create more congruent pairings.
  8. White, sparkling, and rosé wines create more contrasting pairings.

Determining the Flavor Profile of Your Food & Wine

While there are over 20 different tastes found in food, you only need to focus on 6 of them when it comes to pairing food and wine. Those include salt, acid, sweet, bitter, fat, and spice. When you’re creating pairings think about the intensity.

Food

Is the food light or super rich in flavor? For example, a salad may seem light, but maybe it has a dressing with high acidity. Focusing on the intensity of each component will help you determine which wine pairs best with it.

Wine

Is the wine light or bold? Here are some examples:

  • Sauvignon Blanc is light-bodied white wine but will have a higher acidity.
  • Chardonnay is a full-bodied white wine but not too acidic.
  • Pinot Noir is a lighter-bodied red wine without a lot of bitterness.
  • Cabernet Sauvignon is a more full-bodied red wine with more bitterness.

Now that you have a better understanding of the basic taste components of your dish, you can choose the perfect wine pairing. Whether you’re making a simple mac and cheese or a filet mignon, the right wine will help to balance out the flavors.

Book a Wine Tasting to Find the Perfecting Pairing for Your Next Dinner Party

The next time you’re looking for a bottle of wine to pair with your dinner, turn to Preston Ridge Vineyard. Our winery has a range of options from light and refreshing whites to bold and rich reds. No matter the meal you’ve got planned, we have the perfect wine to pair with it. 

We’re proud to provide a quality wine selection to residents across Ledyard, Mashantucket, Montville, Mystic, North Stonington, Norwich, Preston, Stonington, Uncasville, CT; Westerly, RI and the surrounding areas. If you’re interested in learning more, contact our winery to book your next wine tasting. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Although it’s nice to have you come to our vineyard for a wine tasting, it's also fun to host a wine tasting at your home!! At Preston Ridge Vineyard, we have a wide selection of wines that are perfect to use at the wine tasting you host at home. Here are a few tips for hosting a wine tasting at home:

Wrapping the bottles - I t makes it more fun to wrap the bottles of wine so that no one is judging the wines based on what the bottles say. Sometimes wines that don’t sound appealing can be surprisingly pleasant.

Setting up the table - The ideal color of your table would be white, so you should get a white tablecloth to put over the table you are setting the wine glasses on. This will give your guests a clear view of the color of each wine you present during the wine tasting.

Scents in the room - It’s important to make sure the room you are using for your wine tasting has a neutral smell so that you and your guests can properly smell each wine.

The temperature of each wine - Red and white wines are supposed to be served at different temperatures. A red wine should be served at 60 to 65 degrees and a white wine should be served at 50 to 55 degrees. Before your wine tasting put your white wines in the fridge and the red wines in a semi-cool place like the basement.

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Wine tasting is meant to be a fun experience that you can use to discover delicious new wines. Here are some tips to help you make the most of your wine tasting experience:

Swirl & sniff - Swirling and sniffing wine is something people do at wine tastings before tasting their wine. The swirling motion allows more oxygen to get into the wine, which makes the wine become more fragrant.

Swish & Spit or Swallow? - Not every person does this, but those who do wine tastings usually do. Wine tasters will swish the wine in their mouths, then decide whether they want to spit it out or swallow it based on how good it tastes. If the wine is less than desirable, they will spit it out because it’s not worth drinking.

Ask Questions - Winemakers usually encourage their guests to ask questions during wine tastings. They often get so excited about the wines they have and forget not everyone knows the “wine slang” often used at a tasting. Asking for clarification will just show how excited you are to learn about the wine the vineyard has to offer.

Build a Budget - One of the goals is to sell lots of wine when people come in for a wine tasting, so it’s important to have a budget and stick to it. Wine gets expensive fast and the last thing you want is to spend more money than you’d like on wine.

Take Notes - It can be hard to remember the wines that you liked at the beginning of a wine tasting once you get to the end and it’s time to decide which ones to buy.

Contact Preston Ridge Vineyard for more information about our wine tastings! We are located in Preston, CT and look forward to hearing from you soon! 

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